Welcome! Etched by Time is a personal art project developed by printmaker Martin Gabriel Cerda Cabanellas.
My project and works can best be summed up as what I call "Marks of a life lived."
Martin Gabriel Cerda Cabanellas is a contemporary printmaker, retired management consultant, and lifelong observer of people, cultures, and the changing world around him. A dual citizen living between Naples, Florida, and Pollença, Mallorca, he draws upon a life shaped by movement between cultures, professional experience, family ties, and a deep curiosity about the human condition.The son of immigrants to New York City, where he was born and subsequently raised in Miami, Martin sees himself as an artistic explorer with the mind of an ethnographer. His approach to art is grounded in observation: looking first without judgment, seeking to understand, and then using creativity to encourage others to see familiar subjects from a different perspective.
His work is primarily figurative and contemporary, with a particular fascination for printmaking traditions ranging from linoleum and woodblock carving to copperplate etching and, more recently, photopolymer plate techniques. His subjects emerge from both personal experience and broader concerns, including modern life, human migration, environmental change, family heritage, personal responsibility, and the uncertainties facing future generations.His artistic influences include, among others, Francisco Goya, Gerhard Richter, Robert Frank, Robert Rauschenberg, Andy Warhol, Clyde Butcher, Hiroshi Yoshida, and Man Ray—artists whose work encouraged audiences to look more closely, think differently, and discover meaning beyond the obvious.The philosophy of Etched by Time, Martin's evolving body of work, reflects his belief that a life is defined by the experiences, relationships, observations, and choices that leave their marks upon us. Yet life is also about the marks we choose to leave behind.His years of exploring art and printmaking have led him to see the language of the printmaker as a metaphor for life itself:The hand → agency
The press → forces we can and cannot control
Pressure → adversity
The plate → experience
The incision → trauma and change
The mark → consequence
The ink → memory
The impression → what we leave behind
The edition → the repetition of everyday life
Through Etched by Time, Martin seeks neither to preach nor prescribe answers. Instead, he creates visual questions—works intended to engage, provoke curiosity, encourage reflection, and perhaps help viewers see familiar people, places, and challenges in a new way.Etched by Time — Marks of a Life Lived.
“Art is the creative expression of the human spirit’s struggle to understand life.” - Frank Capra
To connect with Martin and share your thoughts and experiences, please follow the links below.
"The best and only thing that one artist can do for another is to serve as an example and an inspiration." - Ralph Waldo Emerson
